


Something Worth Waiting For

by byericacameron



Series: Fighting For Home [1]
Category: Cut & Run - Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Getting Together, Love at First Sight, M/M, Mechanics, Not Beta Read, POV Multiple, Pining, Slow Build, Temporarily Unrequited Love, for one of them anyway
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:42:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26909851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/byericacameron/pseuds/byericacameron
Summary: It started with a Help Wanted sign, a cheap, black and orange sign someone had taped to the window crooked. Although Tyler Grady needed a job so he could buy the bike and the Mustang he had his eye on, it was the crooked set of the sign more than its offer of employment that drew him into the office of Garrett & Son's Garage. That off-centered, haphazardly placed sign was an affront to his sensibilities as much as the possibility of working for a mechanic was a lure for his fledgling grease-monkey habits. Ty seriously doubted they'd hire a 16-year-old, though, so when he opened the main door it was with the intention of fixing the sign and leaving.Then he saw the guy behind the counter.-----Set in the same alternate universe asMobs, Thieves, and Mothers, this is the story of how Ty met Zane. Although it's technically a prequel, the works can be read in either order.
Relationships: Zane Garrett/Ty Grady
Series: Fighting For Home [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1963474
Comments: 18
Kudos: 47





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This prequel was requested a long time ago, but this is the first time in years I've had a chance to write just for the fun of it. I'm going to try to post a chapter at least every other week, but I can't guarantee any regularity.
> 
> BEFORE READING PLEASE NOTE: Ty is sixteen at the start of this fic and Zane is twenty-four. They meet at that point, but absolutely nothing happens between them for the full two years before Ty turns eighteen. And even then, it's not immediate. Essentially, although there will not be any on-page sex in this fic, if an age difference bothers you at all, I recommend skipping this fic.

It started with a Help Wanted sign, a cheap, black and orange sign someone had taped to the window crooked. Although Tyler Grady needed a job so he could buy the bike and the Mustang he had his eye on, it was the crooked set of the sign more than its offer of employment that drew him into the office of Garrett & Son's Garage. That off-centered, haphazardly placed sign was an affront to his sensibilities as much as the possibility of working for a mechanic was a lure for his fledgling grease-monkey habits. Ty seriously doubted they'd hire a 16-year-old, though, so when he opened the main door it was with the intention of fixing the sign and leaving. 

Then he saw the guy behind the counter. Dark haired, broad shouldered, and tall--well over six-feet, Ty guessed. The guy could've starred in any one of Ty's secret fantasies, the ones he had a hard time admitting to himself he had. When the guy looked up from his paperwork and his eyes locked with Ty's, something fluttered in Ty's stomach and relaxed in his chest, a knot coming undone or a long-held breath released or a moment of epiphany. For a moment they stared at each other, and Ty could swear he heard a voice in the back of his sigh, "Oh, there you are. I've been looking for you."

"Can I help you?" The guy's distantly polite question and the blandness of his smile forced several unpleasant but very real truths into Ty's head. 

1\. Ty was the only one of them who'd heard that little voice. 

2\. This guy was in his mid-twenties or so, and wouldn't want anything to do with a teenager. Unless Ty was wrong about him and he turned out to be an utter skeezball. 

3\. Ty was _not_ walking out of this building without a job. 

"You guys are hiring?" 

"Are you eighteen?" He asked as though he absolutely expected the answer to be no. 

"I need money to buy a bike and a car, but the ones I have my eye on are going to need a lot of work before they're back in working order." Ty peeled the sign off the window and walked toward the counter. "I'm _not_ eighteen, but if you hire me and teach me how to restore my rides, I will bust my ass doing whatever everyone else is too busy for or just straight-up doesn't want to do."

When Ty dropped the sign on the counter, the guy's eyebrows rose, and Ty was almost certain a smile was fighting to make an appearance. 

"I'll even work a whole day for free to prove to you I'm serious about this," Ty pressed while he had a small advantage. "I promise you won't regret it."

"You got confidence, kid, I'll give you that." He let himself smile at last, and Ty fell a little harder. "You got a name to go with all that bravado?"

"B. Tyler Grady, but everyone calls me Ty." He stuck his hand over the counter and held his breath until the guy accepted the greeting. The skin pressed against Ty's was warm and calloused, so the guy actually worked the cars, not just the desk. "And you are?" 

"Zane Garrett."

"Are you _the_ Garrett or are you the son?" If this guy was already married with kids it would be better to find out now. The heartbreak would heal faster and cleaner. 

"I'm the son," Zane confirmed. "Rugrats are a long way off for me. And what's the B stand for? You said B. Tyler, didn't you?" 

Ty smirked. "Only my teachers and my parents know the answer to that question, but hire me and I'll let you see my license."

Zane laughed, the sound warm and wonderfully low. "You know what, kid? Sure, we'll give this a try for a day. I'm intrigued. I want to see if you can walk your talk, so come by tomorrow morning at six and if that works out, the job is yours. We'll see about the extra training later. If you last."

"Oh, I'll last. Pretty soon, you won't even know what you did without me."

Another laugh, one that sent Ty's skin buzzing pleasantly. "Damn, kid. I hope you can live up to your own hype. We really could use the help."

A few minutes later, after Ty had handed over his phone number and happily taken one of Zane's business cards, he walked back out of the office. He walked slowly, but his mind spun at warp speed, planning and plotting and scheming. 

Although most people who knew Ty would argue, one thing Ty knew well was how to be patient. For something he really wanted, something that could be life changing and amazing, he was willing to wait. It was less than two years until Ty's eighteenth birthday. Right now, that felt like an eternity, but Ty knew he'd look back on this and loathe himself beyond bearing if he walked away or screwed this chance up before then. Besides, even if he couldn't make a move on Zane, it wasn't as though Ty had to sit around and do nothing the whole time. Two years gave him a chance to study Zane, to level the playing field, and to learn exactly how best to get past the qualms he already knew Zane would have about becoming a couple. Two years gave him time to become indispensable at the garage. Two years gave him time to see if that voice in his mind had been right. Waiting two years for someone who felt so absolutely _right_ at first glance was annoying, but damn if Ty didn't think it'd be worth it. 


	2. Chapter 2

When Zane pulled his bike up to the garage at 5:36 am, the kid from the day before was already there, and Zane couldn't help being impressed. B. Tyler Grady, full first name unknown, was apparently a boy of his word. 

"Hope I haven't kept you waiting long," Zane called as soon as he took off his helmet. 

"Not yet." The pink tinge to his cheeks from the bite of the early morning autumn chill called Ty a liar, but Zane kept that thought to himself. Besides, there was something about the kid's smile that made Zane think Ty was talking about something else entirely. The smile changed, too, when the kid's attention flicked to the bike and roamed its form with an appreciative eye. "Nice bike. It's a 90s model Valkyrie, right?"

"Yeah." He patted the leather seat and smiled at the bike. Compliments to his baby were always welcome. "First thing I ever bought for myself when I got my license. She was a mess when I found her, but she turned out well."

"Clearly, you do good work. She's a beauty." 

"Thanks." Zane could still remember the months of work after he turned sixteen restoring the battered 1997 Honda Valkyrie. His college girlfriend, Becky, had jokingly called the bike Zane's "other woman," and although that annoyed him, he couldn't exactly tell her she was wrong. Sighing and pushing memories of Becky aside with a heartsick pang, Zane dug his keys out of the pocket of his leather jacket, headed for the side door of the garage, and changed the subject. "By the way, we don't actually open until seven, so getting here at six is more than early enough."

He glanced at the kid as he slipped the key into the lock, finding himself curious about how he'd react to the statement, and he wasn't surprised to see a "Sure, whatever you say" smile on Ty's face as he nodded. Somehow, Zane knew this wouldn't be the last time the kid beat Zane here in the morning. 

_Son of a bitch, you've already decided to hire him,_ he realized. Hell. Well, he would so long as Ty didn't do something monumentally stupid before Zane cut him loose for the day. Zane, despite his instincts, was determined put Ty through his paces that day, providing plenty of opportunities for success and failure. 

"C'mon in and I'll show you around." The side door Zane used brought them into the main garage. It was a cavernous space with five work bays complete with lifts, extra long work benches, cabinets full of tools, and large display that tracked inventory and job status for the whole shop. Right now, two of the bays were full, one with a beautiful 1959 Ford F-100 pickup and the other with a beat to hell 1999 Toyota Camry that Zane couldn't believe the owner was wasting money fixing.

"One of these things is not like the others," Ty muttered under his breath, his tone almost sing-song. "One of these things just doesn't belong."

Zane chuckled and then shrugged. "I did try to tell him the Camry wasn't worth fixing, but he was weirdly insistent. And he paid half up front, so whatever."

But the kid raised one dark eyebrow, his eyes sparkling with humor. "I was talking about the Ford."

"Careful, kid. People with the money to buy cars like that Ford but no idea what to do with them are a good part of what keeps me in business." Zane flicked on the banks of overhead lights. "Besides, ain't no one an expert in everything. There's always going to be a task you don't know how to do. Even if you don't treat people with respect because it's the right thing to do, treat 'em that way because you might need them later."

Zane glanced at the kid again, expecting an eye roll or the beginning of some snarky comeback, but instead Ty was smiling like Zane had passed some sort of test. Weirder still, the kid's cheeks flushed in a way that could no longer be explained by the cold when Zane caught him at it. 

Ty quickly shifted his gaze to the tool chest someone had left open at closing last night, cleared his throat, and changed the subject. "The setup you've got here is awesome. The simpler stuff I recognize, but some of this I don't even remember seeing in the other garages I've been in."

"Yeah, well..." This time Zane was the one fighting an inexplicable flush. The equipment had been a point of contention between him and some of the older members of the family, and the addition of it when Zane took over the shop officially had cost him some of the senior mechanics. But it was _his_ garage now, dammit, and he was going to run it the way he wanted to. "I like new tech. I tend to be an early adapter of most new systems and tools if I can see a use for them here. But don't go thinking you'll get through today easy just because there's stuff in this shop to make even a novice look like they know what they're doing. I don't hire anyone who can't tune an engine with only the basics."

Again, Ty smiled, the expression almost proud, but Zane only saw it in the reflection of the inactive screen hanging on the wall Ty was pretending to stare at. Again, Zane had the strange sense that the kid was testing him as much as he was testing the kid. It was a little shocking that Zane didn't seem to mind. Usually, shit like this drove him crazy, the manipulations people put others through, or the frustrating habit others had of refusing to speak their minds, but if felt different with Ty. Mostly, it felt like people were poking at him and expecting him to fail. Ty seemed to be giving Zane the chance to prove the opposite. Or something. It was early, after all, and Zane hadn't had his coffee yet. He was probably imagining things.

Instead of trying to read Ty's mind, he took him on a quick tour of the workspace and showed off some of the cooler pieces of hidden storage and access that had been built in to the place when Zane took over last year—officially—and had the whole building updated. Over and over, Ty impressed him. The kid didn't know everything, and never pretended to. He asked intelligent questions. More importantly, he paid attention to Zane's answers with a focus that showed he was doing his best to memorize the information and instructions Zane was flooding him with.

Even though it had only been about half an hour that he’d spent with Ty, not counting their brief meeting yesterday, Zane was pretty sure that the kid would be the garage’s newest employee by the end of the afternoon. It was partially because he reminded Zane of himself at sixteen. A more mature, confident, and self-aware version of himself, but still.

Soon, the need for coffee and to get the systems running for the day drove Zane into the office. Ty followed close behind, but he split off when Zane made straight for the coffeemaker. Instead, the kid roamed the office and the waiting room beyond, his gaze intently scanning the framed photos on the walls.

"I've driven by this place before." Ty tapped a picture of the first Garrett dealership, an old black and white that had been taken on the grand opening. In 1943. "And there are a few others in town with that name, too, now that I think about it. You own all those, too?"

"Remember how I told you I'm the _son_ in the Garrett & Son's?" Zane tilted his head toward the picture as he started the first pot of coffee for the day. "Dad and the rest of the Garretts handle the dealerships."

"The rest?"

"Grandad, an uncle, my sister, and a few others." He gestured to a photo on another wall with almost the entire extended family crowded into the frame. "If you're here for more than a day, you'll meet most of them eventually."

And instead of asking more about the family, like Zane expected him to, Ty went a completely different route. "'Cause you worked out a contract to make sure the trade-ins get checked out here before the dealership takes them?"

Zane's eyebrows rose as he turned to fully face the room. "Uh, yeah. Among other things. I mean, the dealerships all have at least a small service department, but the garages pick up the overflow from all of them as needed."

The kid had either the insolence or the actual business acumen to nod like he approved of Zane's business decisions, and Zane found himself trying not to laugh in delight. Whether he followed his initial instinct and hired the kid at the end of the day or not, he was already sure that no part of today was going to be boring.

“It looks like this place has been here longer than you’ve been alive,” Ty observed, his gaze flicking between Zane and a picture of the shop on opening day back in the sixties. “How long have you been in charge of it?”

“Officially? A little more than a year.” Zane was ready to leave it there, but there was a patient expectancy to Ty’s expression that encouraged more detail, so Zane found himself explaining more. “I did a five-year program that gave me a bachelors and an MBA by the time I graduated, and I fully took over all the garages once I was done with school, but I’ve more or less grown up here. I’ve had a hand in making decisions for this place since high school.”

Ty nodded, expression still focused like this information was going to be part of a test later. “And who left that you needed help so badly?”

“It was a series of people, really. One retirement, one maternity leave, and two quit.” Zane would be happy to have Michelle back once her leave was up, but the rest of the departures were still a sore point for him, and he hadn’t to admit even to himself how much the succession of abandonments had shaken his confidence.

“Their loss. Good for me, though.” Ty admitted.

“You think so, huh?”

“No way I would’ve been able to get a job here otherwise.”

“You don’t have a job yet, kid.” Zane was deeply amused by the expression that reminder brought onto the kid’s face—a flash of temper before a contemplative frown settled on his face. It made Zane fight back a smile. “But speaking of jobs, tell me how you see this working if I bring you on. You’re sixteen, so you’ve got to still be in school.”

“I’m on winter break now, and I don’t go back for another two weeks, so I can work pretty much every day except Christmas until then,” Ty said, his frown replaced by the determination Zane was already getting used to seeing on his face. “When school’s back in session, I was already going to be signed up for dual enrollment so I’ll have my AA by the time I graduate high school. Since my college classes are going to be entirely online, I only have to be at school a few hours a day.” Then, in a flash, the kid’s cocky grin from yesterday was back. “Think of it like giving me a long lunch break.”

“Hmm. And do you realize that Massachusetts labor laws for minors will essentially restrict you from doing anything you might consider interesting?” Even Zane had been surprised by the number of regulations on what teen employees could and could not do for a job.

“Really?” His expression scrunched, either annoyance or disgust shining through. But it only lasted a second. “Doesn’t matter. I can learn by watching almost as well as I can learn by doing. And the government can’t stop me from practicing on my own car in my own time.”

This time, Zane couldn’t hold back his smile. “True. Just wanted to make sure you knew what you were going to be in for. You’d basically be the shop gopher, checking inventory and sweeping up and running errands and whatever else the rest of the team needs you to do.”

“Put me in charge of your inventory and I’ll organize it within an inch of its life,” the kid promised, his eyes gleaming.

“Boss, tell me you have coffee ready.” The words were muffled through the door, but Zane recognized the voice well enough to slide out of the way of the coffeemaker before Alston shouldered his way into the office. “I slept for shit, and I should not be allowed to touch anything breakable until my third cup of this.”

Knowing the man wouldn’t have eyes for anything until he had a cup of coffee in his hand, Zane stayed silent while Alston poured and then heavily doctored a massive thermos of coffee. Only after he’d taken his first sip and turned around did he finally notice that Zane wasn’t the only other person in the room. He blinked and then squinted as though trying to get a better look at the unexpected face. “Who’re you?”

“Scott Alston, this is Tyler Grady.” Zane gestured broadly as he made the introductions. “Tyler, this is Alston. He’s going to be showing you the ropes today.”

And, by the end of the day, Alston would either be ready to adopt the kid as a protégé or be on the verge of murdering him, and both reactions would be very useful to Zane as he made his final decision.

“Am I really?” Alston grumbled, his face tilted toward his coffee cup but his eyes blearily watching the kid.

Zane nodded. “You are, especially since, if you do, you’ll have my permission to hand over the rest of the monthly inventory check to him once you feel like he won’t screw it up.”

Alston brightened immediately. “Tyler, I sincerely hope you are a fast learner.”

The kid smirked. “Drink your coffee and let me know when you’re ready to find out.”

* * *

Zane spent most of the morning updating the shops’ accounts, calling to check in with the managers of the other, slightly smaller, garages, and making appointments for maintenance work with the customers who had contracts with the garage. Through it all, he wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or a very bad one that he didn’t hear anything from or about Ty until noon. Spotting Alston alone in the break room, Zane was hit with an unexpectedly strong wave of disappointment.

“Did the kid bail?” he asked.

Alston laughed. “I don’t think that kid has bailed on a single thing in his entire life, and I seriously doubt he’s the type to start now.” He waved one calloused hand toward the back of the garage. “Ty had some calls to return, so he’s out back there somewhere.”

The knot in Zane’s stomach unwound. He pulled out a chair and sat with his hands folded on top of the surface. “So? First impressions?”

“That kid is going to run you out of this place if you don’t watch your back.” It seemed like a joke at first, but Alston seemed completely serious. “He’s more put together at sixteen than I am at thirty, Zane. Whip-smart, organized as hell, and has treated every word I said today like it was gospel.”

“Yeah, I noticed that about him already. I was curious to see how he was with someone who wasn’t the owner, though.” Zane smiled, pleased and weirdly proud that Ty had impressed Alston as quickly as he’d made an impression on Zane. “So you think he’s serious about this? Worth giving him a chance?”

“Zane, all I can tell you is that hiring Ty will either be the best or worst decision you’ve made since you took over this place.” He took a bite of his sandwich and shrugged. “Which one? No idea.”

Nodding absently, Zane let the comments sink in as he want back to his office. Part of him wanted to see Ty and talk to the kid himself, but he also didn’t want to interrupt the flow of the day and accidentally influence things one way or the other. Instead, he turned on the security camera display he usually didn’t turn on unless there was a problem and watched from a distance.

Ty spent the afternoon moving back and forth between the various storage racks and bins, one of the shop’s tablets in his hands and a frown of concentration on his face. More than once, it was clear he either couldn’t find what he was looking for. Zane waited and watched each time to see how long it would take the kid to ask for help. As important as independence was in anyone who worked in his shop, he also had to be sure that his staff wouldn’t fumble through something they weren’t certain about and end up fucking something up. The kid skirted the line between wasting his own time and wasting other people’s, but Zane got the sense that it’d balance itself out if the kid was given enough time to learn his way around. Between the discreet spying and the comments Alston had made earlier, Zane was convinced. He had proof now to back up his instincts.

After Ty had been working for eight hours, Zane sent Alston a message to have the kid come back to the office. Surprisingly, it’s another full fifteen minutes before there’s a knock at the door.

“Sorry,” Ty said as soon as Zane called out for him to enter. “I was in the middle of counting something when Alston gave me your message and I wanted to finish that bit before I gave the inventory back to him.”

“Understandable. Take a seat.” Zane waved at the chair across from his desk and Ty slid into it. The kid was trying to look relaxed, but he was sitting too straight and his hands wouldn’t stop moving, his left fidgeting with the loose lining on one of the chairs arm and his right tapping out a seemingly random rhythm on his thigh. “Having gotten a sense of what you’d _actually_ be doing here, what do you think?”

“I think you need to let me reorganize every single shelf in this building.” The words poured out of Ty. In a flash, his eyes widened, and the rest of his body went still, and Zane had to laugh. Clearly, the kid hadn’t meant to say that.

“Alright, well, l’ll take that into consideration. Any other thoughts?”

“Only that I’m still absolutely sure I want the job,” Ty offered, the tension seeping out of his body and his smile returning in full force.

“You managed to impress Alston, so yeah. We’ll give this a shot.” Zane picked up the clipboard of paperwork he’d prepared and held it out. Before Ty could take it, though, Zane pulled the forms back. “So, do I get to find out what the B stands for now?” 

“I suppose.” Ty shifted out of his seat and reached toward his back pocket, but he hesitated before pulling out his wallet. For the first time since Zane met the kid, he looked uncertain and…well, like a teenager, and something about the momentary vulnerability yanked on Zane’s heartstrings. “Just, no one calls me by my first name except my mother and my best friend, and even they only use it when I’ve royally pissed them off.”

“I can abide by those rules. Probably.”

His gaze roamed Zane’s face for a few more seconds before he sighed, yanked his wallet out of his back pocket, flipped it open to grab his ID, and flicked it across the counter toward Zane. The series of movements were so quick Zane had to slap his hand down on the card to keep it from sliding off the counter and across the room. There, a somewhat recent picture of Ty looked up at him, a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Beaumont, huh?”

“Unfortunately,” the kid drawled.

There was a lot Zane wanted to say about the name, questions about why his family had chosen it and what made it so distasteful for the kid that he exclusively introduced himself by his middle name, but mostly Zane found himself wanting to _say_ _the name_. There was an old-fashioned southern charm to the name, and it seemed like a shame to have a name like that and never hear it unless someone was mad.

It was very clear that Ty was bracing himself for a joke or taunt or mockery, so Zane carefully kept his face as neutral as possible. “Gotta be honest, kid. I was expecting a lot worse than Beaumont.”

The comment was, thankfully, enough to make Ty smile. “Like what?”

“Beauregard? Barnabas? Bartholomew? Belvedere?” With each name Zane suggested, Ty’s eyes got wider.

“Holy shit, it actually could be worse.” Then something seemed to occur to the kid because his expression settled into an amused smirked. “And exactly how long did it take you to come up with that many weird guesses?”

“Not long. I asked my sister. She got married recently, and she’s already wanting a kid, so I knew she’d been spending time looking through baby name books even if she was pretending not to. She spouted those and a lot more off the top of her head when I asked her what B names a guy might avoid using.” Zane grinned. “She had more. Burt, Buck, Brutus, Benedict.”

Ty scoffed and shook his head at that last one as he bent over the paperwork and started filling it out. “My family has too much military history in it to ever name a child after a traitor.”

“Fair enough.” Zane let them lapse into silence then as he made a copy of the license and got out the checklist he used to make sure he got all the legal stuff finished when someone new came onboard. As he worked, Alston’s words from earlier came back to him. It was weird because Zane didn’t disagree. This should have been nothing, just bringing one more person on staff, but it felt important. Not quite momentous—that would be ridiculous—but definitely important.

“So…” Ty looked up at him, and Zane suddenly realized for the first time that the kid was already close to six-foot and probably wasn’t done growing. In a couple years, Ty might even be close to matching Zane’s towering height. He was probably already a heartbreaker. He had a magnetic personality, an athletic build, and a captivating light in his hazel eyes that contrasted well with his tanned skin and dark hair. Puberty had been kinder to Ty than it had been to Zane, and it wasn’t done yet. Zane found himself wanting to be around to see what kind of man Beaumont Tyler Grady would grow into.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Ty probably meant it to come out as a statement, but the pitch at the end was too high.

Wanting to reassure him, Zane nodded and smiled. “Tomorrow. Seven A.M. We can start with you telling me exactly what you think is wrong with the way I store my parts.”

The kid just grinned. “Yes, sir.”


	3. Chapter 3

For months, Ty arrived early and stayed late. He swept and scrubbed and polished and answered phones and chased down payments and scheduled appointments and reorganized both the office filing cabinet and the parts storage for the entire garage. He worked as much as he legally could, and while he was doing it, he waited and he watched. Then, about six months after he started working at the garage, he started learning. Not about engines, though. He finally started learning more about Zane.

Zane Zachary Garrett was wicked smart and immovably determined. His parents could have bought his admission to any school he wanted, but instead he earned his way into Cornell University and then, in just five years, graduated with honors and a complicated degree—a bachelors in economics and management with a minor in mechanical engineering _plus_ an MBA. When he graduated and returned to Boston, he took over the garage, but he didn’t just let the already successful business coast. Instead, he dug in and spent an incredible amount of time bringing everything in the shop up to date and up to his own exacting standards.

He was also a complete goofball. The jokes he told were the most ridiculous things Ty had ever heard, and sometimes all Ty could do was stare in absolute disbelief that he’d heard the man correctly. And the _puns_. Dear Lord, the puns. Ty wanted so badly to hate them, but how could he when every one made the giant geek so giddily happy?

He never asked anyone to do work he wasn’t willing to do himself. No matter how grimy or disgusting the job was, the boss jumped in to help with whatever he could when he wasn’t stuck in the office with the paperwork. “First in, last out,” was a freaking life motto for Zane as far as Ty could tell.

He could be staggeringly kind. When kids came in with their parents, candy or small toys always magically appeared out of nowhere. When seemingly decent people looked like they were about to throw up at the cost of repairs their vehicle needed to keep it running and keep them working, the garage suddenly had very reasonable payment plans. When one of the mechanics suddenly had to drop everything and take a week off because their young daughter developed pneumonia, Zane gave him extra paid time off and took over the spot in the garage, coming to work in work clothes instead of office wear and happily digging into the engines himself.

He also took absolutely no shit. The squeaky wheel never got the grease in Garrett’s garage. Unless it was actually a wheel and it was making weird noises. That was different. Metaphorically, though, Zane never gave in to the people who walked in a complained and bitched and kicked up a fuss over more or less nothing—or were _plainly_ just angling for a discount because they wanted one instead of needed one. Ty _loved_ to watch Zane absolutely shut down every attempt at gaming the system people tried to pull. It was a thing of beauty.

One of the things that surprised him the most, though, was discovering the fascinatingly unexpected combination of hobbies Zane had outside of engines and technology. Knives. Sketching. Guns. Horses. History and strategy. Martial arts. Painting. Each gem of information was revealed in an offhand comment or a conversation with one of the other employees, and Ty hoarded every one like a dragon with a stockpile of gold.

Thankfully, it didn't take long for Ty to figure out how to earn himself even more time with his enticingly out of reach boss. He waited a full week after he learned a particularly tantalizing bit of information from the rest of the mechanics before he strolled into Zane’s office near the end of a busy Saturday and plopped down in the uncomfortable chair across from the main desk. The boss was deep in the shop accounts, papers spread across the desk and information spread across both his computer monitors, but he still asked, “What d’you need, Ty?”

"Well, I heard you're as much of a badass off a bike as you are on or under one." Ty made the innuendo so obvious that anyone listening would take it as a joke. Just because he meant it didn’t mean it was time to let anyone else—especially Zane—in on that secret.

Zane stilled for a second, but he didn’t bother looking up from his work. "You're not getting a raise or more hours, Tyler. I’m already paying you too much for one. And two, working any more at your age is illegal."

"I deserve both and you know it, but that wasn't what I was angling for right now." Ty watched Zane fight a smile for a few seconds before he laid out the rest of his proof. "I'm serious. Michelle was telling me about the time you kept her from getting mugged, and I heard from Perrimore that he saw a wicked collection of knives and a black belt on display one of the times he ended to at your apartment."

"Y'all gossip too much," Zane grumbled, pink tinging his cheeks. However, he also folded his hands and finally looked at Ty. “Was there a question there I was supposed to answer?”

“Is it true?”

“Yes.”

“You good?”

“By certain standards.”

“By yours?”

“Passable.”

Which probably meant he was nearly an expert by most other people’s standards. Another thing Ty had learned since he started at the garage was that Zane was more than a little bit of a perfectionist and that no one would ever be harder on him than he was on himself.

“Why the interest, Ty?”

“Would you be willing to teach me?” He asked the question as casually as he could, afraid to let on how much the answer mattered.

Although Zane seemed to consider it for a second, he started shaking his head mere seconds later. “Not sure I’d be the best teacher. I can recommend some different gyms and centers. It just depends on what you want to learn.”

“C’mon, boss. Between school and work and pretending I still have a social life of a sort, my bits and pieces of free time doesn’t exactly line up with the times classes are usually scheduled for.”

“You could _not_ work forty hours a week,” Zane suggested wryly. “That’s always an option.”

“You could not work sixty hours a week,” Ty shot back.

The man’s smile turned rueful. “But where’s the fun in that?”

“Exactly.” Ty grinned. Zane might give him shit about how much he worked, but it was clear the guy understood. The were the same in that way—they both were happier and more at peace when they were massively overscheduled. “Besides, working forty hours a week means I might be able to buy both the bike and the Mustang in a few more months, but I’m going to have to start buying all the replacement parts as soon as I have something to put them in.”

“How awful you poor, mistreated child,” he drawled.

Ignoring the frisson of annoyance that ran down his spine hearing Zane call him a child, even jokingly, Ty pressed on. “Dedication to my work should work in my favor, though, shouldn’t it? Since my work is your work.”

Ty was braced for a comeback or another dig at how he really didn’t need to be working as much as he was—which was true, but he was only kind of working for the money. He got silence instead. Zane was fully focused on him in a way Ty didn’t get to experience often.

“This is important to you,” Zane finally said, the words slow and almost uncertain. “Why?”

Thankfully, Ty had already thought of a reason that didn’t include sneaking ways to spend even more time with the man who was supposed to just be his boss. “I told you there’s a bit of a military legacy in my family, right? Well, I’ve already learned a lot of different things. I can hit what I aim at with a gun and my dad and grandad have taught me the basics of boxing and the some of the other fighting styles they used to teach the Marines, but neither of them know anything about knives. And I’m curious to see what else you might be able to teach me.”

It was a little surprising that Ty’s explanation was enough to make Zane think about it. Ty had been pretty positive that he’d have to make several more arguments before he had even a slim hope of getting Zane to agree to this request, but, delightfully, it seemed like he’d been wrong.

“Alright. We’ll try.” He dragged a small notepad closer and scrawled something on the top sheet before tearing it off and holding it out. “Meet me here at ten on Sunday morning. I promise nothing long term, but there’s probably a few things I can show you.”

There were _definitely_ quite a few things Ty was sure Zane could show him, but he was smart enough to take the paper, take the win, and keep his mouth shut on everything else.

* * *

The weekend couldn’t come fast enough. Before Sunday, though, Ty had a standing Saturday movie night with Nick to arrange, and for once, he wasn’t looking forward to it. No one except his younger brother knew him as well as Nick did. Although he was getting better at keeping certain things hidden from his best friend, he knew he didn’t have any hop of hiding the giddy, twitchy, nervous excitement about his Sunday meeting with Zane.

Despite his fixation on the garage and its owner, Ty recognized that he’d been neglecting his best friend. They didn’t even have full school days anymore because of Ty’s dual enrollment courses. It wasn’t like Ty was Nick’s only friend—far from it—but they were each other’s main confidante; they each knew truths and secrets about the other that no one else knew. Not even family. Or, in some cases, especially not family.

Ty knew all this, and he felt guilty enough about it to go a little overboard in preparing for Nick’s arrival. Multiple movie options, dinner, popcorn made to Nick’s preferences instead of Ty’s, and a homemade pie begged from Ty’s mom. Overkill, sure, but worth it. Even if Nick kept rolling his eyes at Ty every time a new treat was revealed.

“I ain’t a girlfriend you got to kiss up to, Beaumont,” he said when they finally settled on Ty’s bed, backs against the wall, to watch the movie Nick had chosen.

“Just because I’m not dating you doesn’t mean I haven’t been shitty and absent recently, and it doesn’t mean you don’t deserve an apology.” Ty shoved Nick’s shoulder. “Now shut up and watch your movie.”

“Clearly the honeymoon is over,” Nick deadpanned. A split second before he slammed a pillow into Ty’s face.

Ty grabbed the pillow and ripped it out of his friend’s hands. He raised it, sitting up like he was going to retaliate, before changing direction and putting it behind himself instead and flipping Nick off. “No pillows for you, then, asshole.”

They fought back and forth for a while, sneak attacks pulling pillows out from behind the other or shoving each other half off the bed, until they finally turned their attention to haranguing the movie instead of hassling each other. By the time the movie ended, laziness had taken hold, and neither of them could even muster up the energy to stop the eternal loop of the DVD’s main menu.

In even the sixty seconds of quiet after the credits were over, Ty’s mind had already turned to the next morning and all his speculations about what exactly he would be able to convince Zane to teach him.

"So, I’ve been meaning to ask you.” Nick’s voice jolted him out of his daydreams and back into his bedroom. “What's the deal with your boss?"

"There's a lot of potential answers to that question," Ty hedged, stalling for time. "What deal are we talking about right now?"

"The first thing about him might be a good place to start." Nick's drawl dripped even more wry sarcasm than it usually did. "You've been there since December, and I barely know more than the guy's name. I mean, honestly, Ty, I kinda thought I'd have to knock you out to shut you up about engines and all your shop talk when you got that job, but if I didn't ask you about it, I don't think I would have heard a damn thing about the place. And even when I do ask, you almost never mention the guy who supposedly runs the place."

Hell, he’d gone too far. Ty had been trying so hard not to give away his fascination with Zane that he’d been silent about him instead. Anyone who knew Ty would recognize silence about something as just as, or even more, significant than yammering on endlessly about it. That was why he couldn’t avoid answering Nick’s question. The problem was that there was so much about Zane in his head now that he had no idea how to filter through it anymore for someone who’d never met him.

“You’d like him, I think,” Ty said eventually. His voice came out softer than he intended, and he knew he would probably be giving too much of how he felt about Zane away by his tone—if Nick was listening close enough and if it even occurred to him what that softness could mean—but he didn’t care. He hadn’t told anyone about Zane in anything but the most general details, and he found himself aching for his friend to understand, at least a little bit, how special Zane was.

So, for the first time, he left himself talk.

He told Nick about the garage and the trust Zane had placed in Ty by letting him reorganize the shop’s entire inventory of parts the first week he was there. There were stories about the other employees and how Zane treated them like family. He explained the bits and pieces he’d learned about the Garrett’s family history and how, in a weird twist of fate, the family’s time, money, and resources were pretty well split between actual horses on a massive Texas ranch and the horsepower of the dealerships and garages in Boston. It was easy to go from there to the story about the day a customer’s four-year-old daughter had taken an instant and intense liking to Zane and had insisted the man cart her around on his back while he talked to her mother about their old Jeep, and then he just kept going. By the time he finally stopped talking, he wasn’t even sure what he’d said, but he’d said enough to leave his mouth dry and his throat scratchy.

For a moment, the only sound in the room was the increasingly obnoxious loop of the DVD’s menu screen. Ty began cursing himself the longer the quiet lasted; clearly, he’d said too much.

“That’s quite a crush you’re workin’ on, Tyler,” Nick drawled. “When were you planning on telling me your door swung both ways?”

“Shit.” Ty rubbed his hands over his face, mostly to hide the absolute panic that had descended upon him. His hands were already feeling clammy, and his heart had started revving like Zane’s motorcycle. “Is it that obvious?”

“Only when you let yourself start talking about him,” Nick said. “But I shouldn’t exactly throw stones from my shiny fucking glass house, so you can stop panicking, Beaumont.”

“Your what?” Only the complete nonsense of that last sentence allowed Ty to look up.

“Granted, not the best metaphor for this, but you’re a smart boy most of the time.” Nick’s heavy Boston accent got thicker with each word, a clear hint at his own mental state. “I’m sure you can figure it out.”

Ty stared at his friend, too shocked to think in words.

“Don’t make me say it, Beaumont.” It was thrown out like a challenge, but Ty could see the very real fear in his eyes. He wasn’t ready to say it. He was brave enough to give Ty the clues he needed to let him know that he wasn’t alone in this, but he wasn’t ready to say out loud that his door, like he’d said about Ty, swung both ways. Worse, Tyler knew exactly where that depth of fear came from.

Ty was nervous about how his macho, traditional, southern, military father and grandfather would react to finding out the eldest son of the next generation had fallen in love with an older man, but the worst Ty thought he might get would be a slap and maybe— _maybe­_ —getting booted out of the house. Nick, though… Nick’s pseudo-Catholic, alcoholic, racist, abusive, fuckwad of a father might very well kill him if he ever found out his only son was queer. And, if Ty was honest, it was O’Flaherty Senior’s views that had made Ty so reluctant to tell Nick the truth. As much as Nick hated his father, he’d also been raised by the man, and children assimilated at least some of their parents’ views whether they wanted to or not. Ty hadn’t been sure, until now, that this wasn’t one of those instances.

“I promise. Your secret is safe with me, Lucky,” Ty murmured. Nick was free of bruises at the moment—so far as Ty could tell—but that could change quickly, and Ty did _not_ want to be any part of the reason why Nick was walking around with a new set of bumps, breaks, and bruises. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

“Deal.” And as soon as the promise was made, the tension drained out of Nick like someone had pulled the plug in a sink. “Now, you get to explain to me what the fuck you’re thinking chasing after someone ten years older than you.”

“He’s only seven years older, not ten,” Ty muttered mutinously, crossing his arms over his chest. “And anyways, shut up. You can’t possibly say anything to me I haven’t already said to myself. I know it’s ridiculous, and I know I’ve doomed myself to a miserable amount of time waiting to be able to legally ask him out, but it’s not like I _asked_ for this.”

“Don’t suppose anyone would,” Nick allowed. “How fast did it happen?”

“The first fucking time I saw him.” Ty groaned and dropped his head back on the wall. “It was so sappy and romantic and ridiculous. I’m pissed at myself for the whole situation.”

Nick laughed, the asshole. “Don’t start pretending you aren’t a giant fucking marshmallow. I’ve known you too long for you to be able to pull that off.”

“Yeah, well, he doesn’t know that yet.”

“He will eventually if you get your way.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Ty wanted to hate the idea of that, of one more person in the world being able to gut him and leave him to bleed out with only a few words. He couldn’t manage it, though. The idea of Zane knowing him that well and letting him get that close was far too appealing—the desire outweighed the fear. Ty rolled his eyes at himself and grumbled. “Shit. I’m so fucked.”

“And not in the good way.” Nick’s response had Ty glaring at him, but his best friend looked far too serious for that to have been a true taunt. “You realize he probably sees you as a kid, right?”

“Yes.”

“And that if he’s a decent sort at all, that probably won’t change just ‘cause you’re eighteen.”

“Bite me, Irish,” Ty muttered.

“And that changing his mind about that is probably going to take a level of patience from you that I don’t see you use very often.”

At that, Ty smiled wryly. “Nick, I took a job that is basically mental and sexual torture, and I will be working there five days a week for two years just on the off chance I might be able to convince my boss to let me take him on a date. I am thoroughly aware of how much patience this is going to take.”

“And it’s still worth it to you?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Well, shit.” Nick rubbed his mouth before he shrugged and looked at Ty with something like skepticism. “Good luck, I guess?”

“Thanks,” Ty said with far less sarcasm than intended. He shouldn’t turn away any luck, after all. He was gonna need a hell of a lot of it.


	4. Chapter 4

Ty was, of course, early.

Thankfully, Zane was used to this particular habit of the kid’s by now, so he was dressed, fed, caffeinated, and ready by the time there was a knock at the door.

A version of Ty he wasn't used to seeing was standing on the other side. He had a gym bag over his shoulder, but he was already dressed for a workout in comfortably light and loose shorts and a black tank top. From the way his dark hair was disheveled, far messier than usual, it seemed like he'd just rolled out of bed, but Zane could smell cologne or aftershave that seemed to indicate the kid hadn't been so rushed he didn't have time to shower. And he looked as awake as he always did at the shop in the mornings, too. His hazel eyes glimmered with their usual humor and secrets, a mix of expressions it seemed like only Ty could pull off. Zane had already recognized the handsomeness of the kid and the way puberty seemed to be playing nice with this one. Something about how Ty looked _today_ , though, brought that revelation back again.

_He's gonna be a heartbreaker one day_ , Zane thought as he looked the kid over like he was seeing him for the first time. It seemed like Ty had grown an inch or so since Zane had met him. His shoulders seemed more filled out, too. _Hell, he probably already is breaking hearts._

Honestly, if Zane had met someone like Ty in high school, after all, he probably would have figured out his bisexuality a hell of a lot sooner. Whoever caught his attention long enough to hold onto him as he grew into himself was one lucky human being.

Then, the kid raised one dark eyebrow at him, and Zane realized they were still standing at the front door. “I guess you should come in, since you’re here.”

“Hello to you too, boss.” He strolled in, his shoulder brushing along Zane’s chest as he passed through the narrow entryway and into the open floorplan living space. Usually he brought up the society manners his eminently proper mother had drummed into him in childhood and led new guests through the space, doing what he could to make them feel welcome and somewhat comfortable. This time, he found himself hanging back and watching Ty’s reaction instead.

The kid looked around, his usually layered expression more unreadable than usual as he took in the broad sectional in cerulean blue with its plush goldenrod ottoman and large wood coffee table. Next, he focused on the large table dining room with its warm wood table and the twelve plush, cerulean chairs. When he turned the corner, the kitchen came into view. That room was mostly warm wood and glass-fronted cabinets, but the backsplash was a pattern of tiny tiles in shades of blue and there were little bubbles of cerulean in some of the cabinets’ panes of glass. It was all perfectly clean and coordinated, and Zane couldn’t even begin to guess what Ty thought about any of it. Or why his opinion on Zane’s interior mattered in the slightest.

“I don’t know why,” Ty finally said, “but this isn’t what I pictured your place would look like.”

Zane’s heart clenched, and he had to bite back his instinctive response. When Ty faced him again, he could see nothing but curiosity in his expression. It didn’t even feel like this was one of Ty’s unpredictable little tests. Despite how hard Zane found it to believe that the crew at the garage had told Ty about Zane’s hobbies and his habits but somehow skipped right over his heartbreaks.

“I didn’t pick it,” Zane said after a somewhat awkward moment of silence.

“Family place?” Ty asked, still displaying nothing but his usual overly intense curiosity.

“I was engaged. My fiancé chose the place and decorated it while I was in my last year of my MBA.”

“Your—” It seemed like an act of sheer willpower was the only thing that stopped more words from tumbling out of his mouth. But then he seemed to register something new. His expression grew hesitant as he asked, “ _Was_ engaged?”

To Ty’s credit, it looked like he regretted the question even as he asked it. Zane had gotten better talking about Becky without feeling like someone was trying to carve his heart out of his chest with a dull, rusty shovel. It still was a topic of conversation he avoided if it could be helped, though. But he'd realized recently how unfair that was to Becky. She'd been such an important part of his life for several years, and he'd fully expected her to continue being there for the rest of their lives. Now, his newer employees didn't even know she'd ever existed.

“Her name was Becky.” Zane looked at the closest photo, one from the early days of their relationship when they’d met at Cornell. She’d been caught mid-laugh, but that wasn’t really hard to do. Becky had almost always been laughing. It was part of what had made the silence so hard to bear when she was gone. “She died three months after we closed on this place. Drunk driver side-swiped her car.”

So much happened on Ty's face in the space of a breath that all Zane could do was guess at the kid's thoughts. There was really no telling what had thrown him more—the fact that Zane had once been engaged or the fact that he was a widower in all but legal paperwork.

Whatever was going on behind those hazel eyes, Ty's expression settled on deep and sincere sympathy as he said, "I'm sorry you lost her so early."

Somehow, it both was and wasn't what he'd been expecting to hear. Pretty much everyone expressed their sympathies in one of a handful of ways, and they all amounted to the same thing—"This is the only way I know how to recognize that you're grieving, so I don't know what else to say except a version of 'I'm sorry for your loss.'"

Ty's words somehow felt different. It was like the kid had cut through to the heart of not only Zane's grief but his guilt and the main reason he’d stayed in this apartment after Becky had died. Zane had lost her so early. They'd known each other for a few years and she'd been amazing, nothing and exactly like the kind of person he'd always dreamed of spending his life with, but they hadn't gotten the chance to try. Their wedding was still a vague idea for the future with a nebulous date range they'd kind of decided on. Their apartment had only held the two of them simultaneously during the week of their move. They never had the chance to live together. Would things have worked out? Would they have driven each other around the bend with the little quirks of daily life? Zane would never know, and it had taken him a long time to realize that he'd been mourning that—the loss of never knowing for sure—even more deeply than he'd been mourning Becky. That had hit him in the chest several months after her death when he'd finally risen out of the alcohol and academia induced cloud he’d been lost in. Ty was either perceptive enough to see all that at a glance or…

Or Zane needed to stop getting this fucking philosophical before lunch on a weekend and district them both with the pointy, dangerous things that had brought Ty over here in the first place.

He cleared his throat, murmured a quiet, "Thanks," and tilted his head toward the other door directly across from the kitchen. “We’re heading in there first.”

Looking relieved to have something other than Zane’s past to focus on, Ty nodded and turned to walk around the large dining room table and toward the door. When he and Becky had originally picked the place, this was going to start out as a shared home office for both of them, but it hadn’t stayed that way after he lost her. He left everything else the way she’d designed it. This room, though, had been gutted and transformed into a minimalist alter to his deep-seated aggression.

He’d replaced the floor with commercial quality padded matting, and the space that had once been a closet was now a custom-designed storage area for gear and weapons. The rest of the weapons, especially the ones that were more for display and historical value than for actual use, were hung along the front wall of the room. There was a sliding glass door out to a wide balcony from which he could also access the master bedroom, and that was where he’d hung the punching bag. A full free-weight set was the only other thing taking up space in the room.

It wasn’t surprising that the weapons on the wall were what first grabbed Ty’s attention. He dropped his bag to the side and walked toward that wall with fascination in his eyes. Zane wondered what he thought about the admittedly random collection. There was everything from a revolutionary war saber to a Klingon bat’leth and a lot of stuff in between. All of it was sharp but most of the wall display wasn’t actually usable whether because of the historical value—for example, the saber—or impracticality—for example all his sci-fi and fantasy reproductions. But then Ty stopped short in front of one of the smaller knives on the wall.

“Shit, is that a World War II KA-Bar?” Ty’s hand hovered over the knife in the battered leather sheath, but he didn’t touch it.

“Yeah. Good eye. You’ve seen one before?”

“My grandfather still has his.”

“That’s my grandfather’s,” Zane admitted, smiling a little at the moment of similarity. “But none of these are really good for use unless the zombie apocalypse actually does happen.”

Ty gave him a strange look, but after a quick glance at the bat’leth, seemed to consciously decide not to ask.

“Go check out that corner.” Lifting his chin, he directed Ty’s attention to the repurposed closet. “Feel free to poke around. I want to see what you know.”

Expression full of determination when he accepted the challenge, the kid strolled over and did exactly as Zane asked. He opened cabinets and drawers, he hefted items to test their weight and balance, and he examined everything as though he actually did have some idea what he was looking at.

After a few minutes, Zane issued his first test. “If someone came in here and threatened to kill you, which one would you go for?”

Ty swept his gaze over the storage one more time before reaching for two different knives—a Cold Steel Tai Pan 3V and a modified KA-BAR Tanto. Then, without prompting, the kid explained why. “These are fixed-blade, so no messing with opening them in a rush, and they both look like they’ve got an edge on both sides of the blade, so I have a better chance of doing damage even though I don’t know what I’m doing with knives yet.”

“Better chance of doing damage to yourself, too,” Zane countered.

“If someone was actually trying to kill me, I think I’d take that risk.”

“Fine. Fair.” Zane smiled and nodded his approval. “They’re good choices. Now, pick them all up and tell me which one would be the best to try to throw at someone if you actually wanted to land a blow with the blade instead of smacking them in the face with something solid.”

The decision took longer this time, which Zane approved of. This wasn’t an easy challenge for someone who wasn’t familiar with knives or other finely balanced weaponry. After several minutes of careful inspection and some inexperienced attempts at balancing some of the knives on the tip of his finger, Ty finally held up two choices—one Whetstone Cutlery Kunai Knife and one Cold Steel True Flight. The kid obviously had good instincts since both blades were perfectly suited to flying in a straight line.

“All right. One more question.” Zane took the blades from Ty and put them back in their places before he crossed his arms and leaned against the wall to watch the kid’s expression. “Why do you actually want to learn how to fight?”

For a moment, it didn’t seem like the kid would answer. His expression had gone blank with either surprise or discomfort and he shifted his weight uneasily. It was almost enough to make Zane take the question back. Almost. The answer was too important, though. Zane just didn’t feel comfortable teaching Ty knives if the kid was itching to find a fight or trying to become some sort of badass. Thankfully, only a minute or so of slightly strained silence passed before Ty took a sharp breath and dropped his gaze.

“Because I’m more than a little neurotic, even if I manage to hide it most of the time,” Ty quietly admitted to the floor. “Sometimes everything gets to be…a lot, and since the only thing I actually have any real control over is myself, I just…” He looked up then and finally met Zane’s eyes. “I like the idea of always knowing what I’m capable of.”

Zane relaxed and a smile overtook his face. “Good answer.”

“Glad you approve,” the kid muttered, rolling his eyes, but Zane didn’t miss the faint flush of rosy color on Ty’s cheeks. “So does that mean you’ll show me how to use a blade or what?”

“Yes and no. We’re not starting with knives. If you stick with this long enough and I can trust that you’re not going to accidentally skewer me or yourself with anything sharper than a practice blade, then we’ll move on to weapons.” Zane expected some sort of protest, but Ty looked intrigued instead. “You said you already knew some basics, so we start there.”

Ty looked delighted. “You wanna spar?”

“Yes.”

“Sure, boss.” He shifted his weight to the balls of his feet and seemed to almost bounce in anticipation as he looked around the space. “Neither of us are small. Think your room can handle it?”

“Not here, Ty.” The space was enough for him to run some drills and keep himself in practice, but it wasn’t a large enough space for two people to spar. One of them was likely to end up face-planting on a wall sooner or later. “C’mon. I’ll show you the place I usually go to. We can see if they have space for us today.”

It only took them a few minutes to grab their gear and head down to the building’s parking lot. Zane was surprised when Ty rounded the car to get in on the passenger side rather than aiming for his own vehicle so he’d be able to leave straight from the gym.

The kid caught the look on Zane’s face and shrugged. “Easier this way. I can pick my car up later, if it’s okay with you.”

“Sure. As long as you’re sure you don’t mind the extra time.”

“I don’t mind,” he replied with a smile that Zane was getting more and more used to seeing, one that seemed to hint that there were layers to what Ty was saying that Zane didn’t understand, some joke that Zane wasn’t in on. Zane still hadn’t decided if he found this particular habit of Ty’s more amusing or annoying.

The drive to the gym Zane knew wasn’t long, so it was easy to fill the time with chatter about the garage. Ty still wasn’t old enough to do any of the actual mechanical work in the place, but the kid had repeatedly demonstrated a real gift for organization, strategy, and engines. Even though he wasn’t allowed to touch any of the engines yet, he was still spending as much time as possible learning about the different configurations and the problems they might encounter. A couple weeks ago, Ty had impressed the hell out of the whole team when his suggested solution had fixed a problem that had stumped three other people. As he learned more, Zane guessed that quicksilver mind would only get sharper and harder to keep up with. Unexpectedly, Zane found himself looking forward to being shown up as long as the competition was Ty.

The conversation fell off as Zane pulled into the parking lot of the gym. It was a standalone building that didn’t look like much of anything from the outside. Most people assumed it was a privately owned warehouse or some sort of self-storage facility. Zane himself had only been introduced to the place after meeting Travis—the son of the owner and one of the full-time trainers.

“Z! It’s been too long!” The voice was the only warning I got before a wiry, shockingly strong arm was slung over Zane’s shoulders and pulling him off balance. Travis. Exuberant as always. “I piss you off or something without knowing it? You usually show up more often than this. Who’s the kid?”

“Travis, Tyler. Tyler, Travis,” Zane introduced. “Is the back room free?”

“For another hour and a half or so.” Travis was still eyeing Tyler with curiosity, but he answered the question clearly enough. “Feel free to use it if you want. You know the usual rules about clean up and shit.”

“Yeah, man, no problem.”

“Chill. Holler if you need something then, Z.” Travis patted Zane’s shoulder and began to back away. “We’ll have to catch up later.”

“You still have my number, asshole.”

Travis did something with his hand that was either a weird version of the Hawaiian shaka sign or some weird indication that he would call later. Zane wasn’t sure. And it didn’t matter much either way.

“Family friend?” Ty was watching Travis leave through slightly narrowed eyes.

“Ex-boyfriend,” Zane said with a shrug as he moved through the gym toward the room at the back they used for smaller classes. After Becky, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to date a woman and had been too lonely to be constantly alone, especially after he moved into the apartment he was supposed to have been sharing with her. The fling with Travis was incredibly short-lived—calling him an ex- _boyfriend_ was being generous—but he wasn’t about to introduce Travis to a teenager as his one-time fuckbuddy.

“Oh.” The wide-eyed shock on Ty’s face only lasted a second, but Zane caught it all the same. Even while walking, it was easy to keep an eye on the kid in his periphery.

“Problem?”

“No.” His gaze shifted to the direction Travis had gone and back. The flinch or flash of disgust Zane had half expected to see never appeared, though. Instead, Ty looked almost nervous. “I, uh…I don’t have one of those yet.”

Well, that was something else entirely, wasn’t it? “Are you expecting to?”

“It’s one possibility.” The kid’s nerves ratcheted up another notch. He adjusted the strap of his bag on his shoulder and his gaze skittered from point to point. “I, um…”

Stumbling over his words twice in the space of thirty seconds? That wasn’t like him. Worried, Zane stopped and looked closer. “What is it, Ty?”

“My family doesn’t know that yet.” He didn’t have to specify what “that” was.

“They won’t find out from me,” Zane promised. “Do you expect problems if they ever do find out?”

“Maybe not _expect_ , but…” He trailed off and shrugged, pretending a nonchalance Zane seriously doubted he felt. Either way, Zane wasn’t going to force him to finish that sentence. Just because someone didn’t expect problems from their family didn’t mean they weren’t afraid of getting them anyway.

Zane had been terrified, especially of the potential reaction of his somewhat uptight and extremely conservative mother. It hadn’t been great, but his fear had definitely been worse than her reaction. Still, it would have made the last eighteen months so much easier if he had known for sure there was somewhere for him to fall if his world fell out from underneath him. Maybe he could be that safety net for someone else.

Clearing his throat, Zane made an offer he sincerely hoped would never be used. “If it ever comes to that and you need help, you can always come to me. Anytime. Whatever you need. Okay?”

Ty stared at Zane with an unreadably complex expression until a soft, grateful light filled his eyes. “Thank you, Zane.”

“Of course.” Unexpected warmth filled Zane’s chest, and he found himself inordinately relieved that the kid would at least have that if the worst happened. “I hope you’ll never need to call in that favor, but it’s there. Just in case.”

It was an extremely rare thing to see Ty truly flustered. To watch him struggle to find a single thing to say? Zane wasn’t sure he’d ever seen that before. In a way very little else about Ty ever did, the moment reminded Zane in a way exactly how young the kid was.

Smiling gently, he gripped Ty’s shoulder and nudged him back into motion. “C’mon. Enough of this. Let’s see if you can knock me off my feet.”

Ty’s bright laughter rang through the gym as he followed Zane into the room. “Well, boss, you can bet your ass I’m gonna try.”

* * *

Although they started slow, each of them testing the other’s skills, reflexes, and strength. Ty had been taught different fighting styles than the ones Zane had picked up over the years. That, though, only made the sparring more interesting. Neither of them could ever quite predict what the other person would do next, and Zane found it a challenge just to keep up with the kid’s incessant energy. By the time Travis poked his head in to warn Zane they had to clear out in the next ten minutes, both of them were sweaty and sporting a couple new bruises each.

The kid hadn’t, however, managed to put Zane down, a fact that seemed to both please and frustrate Ty. What he had managed to do was impress Zane. Again. In fact, as they cleaned up the room and left the gym, Zane couldn’t figure out why he was surprised. Ty had already proven himself to be mature, committed, and self-aware. He wouldn’t jump into something like knife fighting on a whim or give it up quickly. So, honestly, if Ty wanted to learn, Zane found that he was more than willing to play teacher.

Still, a small sadistic streak made him wait until they were back in the parking lot of Zane’s building before he let the kid in on that particular decision.

“If we’re doing this, we do it right,” Zane announced once they were both out of the car. “Every Sunday. At the gym to start out. Ten A.M. Rain or shine.”

“You got it, boss.” The agreement came so fast it was almost automatic, but the grin on Ty’s face was pure joy.

"Six days a week with me instead of your friends,” Zane pointed out. “You sure that’s a deal you’re willing to follow through on?"

Ty laughed. "That ain't a problem. I am a master of follow-through."

"I can see that. It’s impressive, actually.” For some reason, Zane’s comment seemed to startle the kid. It made Zane wonder if maybe he’d taken the habit of giving the kid shit too far for too long. Tyler should know how well Zane thought of him. “You’re decades more mature than I was at sixteen, and you seem smart enough to know how to navigate the world. However, there are some lessons that no amount of innate maturity is going to teach you, and you're still young.”

“Thanks, I think.” He tried to play it off like he didn’t much care. The look in his eyes and the faint flush to his cheeks told Zane otherwise.

Smiling, Zane shook his head and reminded himself that he’d tortured the kid more than enough for one day. “Go get some rest, Ty. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Sure, boss.” Ty picked up his bag and gave Zane a half-assed salute before he began to turn away. He stopped, though, and faced Zane again, an almost tentative look on his face. “I… Well, thank you, I guess. For everything today.”

“Anytime, Tyler.” And he meant it. The longer he knew Beaumont Tyler Grady, the more sure he was that hiring that kid really had been one of the smartest decisions he had ever made.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Between grad school and work, the end of the semester got away from me a little! Hopefully chapters will be a little more frequently during winter break. No promises, but I do hope that will be the case. Thanks for continuing to read!

Eight months and sixteen days after meeting Zane (not that Ty was keeping track), Ty walked back into the office. This time, he opened the door with a key. A _key_.

The week before, Zane had nearly given Ty a heart attack by calling him into the office at the end of the day. After catching his attention across the garage only five minutes before Ty’s shift was over, Zane had crooked two fingers in a “come here” gesture that Ty had spent one glorious moment daydreaming meant something else entirely. Sighing and wiping his hands on his coveralls to make sure he wouldn’t leave grease prints all over the office, he’d strode across the space and tried to guess what this might be about.

“How are you liking it here, Ty?” Zane’s tone had been so even and polite that it was jarring. This was the sort of distance that had been there in the early days, back when Zane was still figuring out if Ty could be trusted to live up to the hype. Hearing it from the man now hadn’t sat well.

Ty had shifted uneasily and then made himself calm the fuck down. An unexpected tone of voice wasn’t enough to justify a panic. Clearing his throat, he’d shrugged and tried to pretend this conversation was anything close to normal. “It’ll be better once I’m legally allowed to work on engines and play with actual power tools, but I don’t have any complaints.”

“Good. So you wouldn’t mind doing me a favor?”

Most of his panic had washed away with Zane’s words, and the rest transformed into exhilaration when the man sitting on the other side of the desk smiled at him. Ty hadn’t been able to help smiling back. “Sure, boss. Whatcha need?”

“My family has been on my case about taking a vacation. I can only put up with so many guilt trips from my mother before caving becomes the easier option.” Zane’s voice had taken on the dry tone full of the underlying sarcasm that Ty had gotten so much more used to hearing.

“That makes sense. Where are you off to?” Silently, Ty prayed he wouldn’t be hearing about some romantic holiday with a new lover the private man had been seeing on the sly.

“The ranch,” Zane had admitted with a small smile. “Got a horse there I haven’t seen in too long, and it’s always nice to be spend some time in open air.”

“Just you?”

“My sister and her husband will be around for some of the time, but yeah. Mostly it’ll just be me.”

A knot had loosened in Ty’s chest as soon as he’d heard that confirmation. “Sounds like a perfect break to me. But what was the favor you needed?”

“Well, you know how Alston is in the mornings.”

“Uh, everyone he runs into for five minutes before ten A.M. knows what Alston is like in the mornings,” Ty muttered.

“Exactly. So you can imagine how pleased he was the one time I needed to take a few days off and he had to get here even _earlier_ to open up the shop and prep the office and handle the appointments and—”

“I’m shocked he didn’t quit on the spot,” Ty had laughed.

“Same, but he did make me promise to find someone else to be my lackey if it ever happened again.”

“Boss.” Ty had placed his hand over his heart and fluttered his eyelashes, mostly to hide how hard his heart had been pounding. “Are you asking me to be your lackey?”

In answer, Zane had held out a key ring hooked on his index finger with several keys clinking from the bottom half of the ring. “Up for it?”

It had taken all of Ty’s self-control not to smirk and purr with satisfaction. It had taken even more control to keep his mouth shut, because all he wanted to say was, “Zane, I am up for absolutely anything you want.” Honestly, it was a close thing. The longer he knew Zane, the more sure he was that his first instinct had been right. And the harder it was to keep quiet about it all. Only the idea of ruining everything by speaking too early gave him the patience he needed to hold his tongue.

Over the next few days, he showed up even earlier than usual and Zane walked him through the procedures to open the shop up. It was rare to have quiet time like this alone with the man. Training hours on the weekends were fantastic, and the idea of other ways those sessions _could_ end had taken up a lot of space in his dreams in the last few months. There was something special, though, about the quiet intimacy of those pre-dawn hours he spent with Zane. It made imagining how mornings in private could be, pre-dawn and pre-coffee and surrounded by the comfort of a space they shared. Ty knew he was getting lightyears ahead of himself and possibly lingering over something that wouldn’t ever happen, but he couldn’t help it. 

Then, Zane got on a plane and flew to Texas to commune with the desert or his horses or whatever the fuck he was going to spend his vacation doing, and Ty was coming to the shop, key in hand, to open up on his own for the first time. It was a good thing. A sign of trust. The garage meant everything to Zane, and he was leaving it in Ty’s hands, at least partially. This was Ty’s chance to prove himself worthy of that kind of faith.

With all of that running in circles in the back of Ty’s mind, he showed up even earlier than he needed to the first day of Zane’s vacation. A thrill went through him when he slipped the key into the lock, undid both bolts, and keyed in the code to shut off the alarm. Except—

The alarm was already deactivated.

Had Alston decided to bear the pain of early morning hours after all? If so, Ty didn’t like the implications. Only a severe lack of trust in Ty’s ability to handle things would have driven Alston here. Or, worse, it wasn’t Alston at all, and someone else had invaded Zane’s sanctuary.

Nothing in the main waiting area or the front desk seemed disturbed, but there was light coming from farther back. There was no way Zane would’ve closed up the office and left that on. So someone else must have. Heart pounding, Ty pulled out his cell phone and switched over to the dial pad screen before shifting closer to the back wall of the main room.

Ty had filled out in the months of physical work at the garage and the training sessions with Zane, and his last growth spurt had left him topping out just over six-foot-two. It wasn’t impossible these days for him to be intimidating just on his size alone. Now that he had more training, he was even confident he could back up intimidation with action if needed.

He didn’t ever expect to be putting that belief to the test in Zane’s office at six A.M. while he was playing manager, but such was life. The lights in the office were already on and Ty knew he’d turned them off before he left the night before. He approached slowly, listening to try to figure out what he was about to walk into and if he needed to call the cops. There wasn’t anything that sounded like burglary, no slamming of drawers or breaking of mugs. It sounded more like…shuffling papers and fingers on a keyboard?

Deciding to take a chance and investigate a little more before causing a fuss and calling the cops, Ty shouldered the partially closed door open and stepped into the room, his stance wide and ready and his arms hanging loose and his phone still at the ready in case he needed to move quickly. “Can I help you?”

The last thing he expected to see was an old man with iron-gray hair, alert eyes, and a smile that somehow reminded Ty of Zane.

“Ah, right on time. You must be Ty, the one my son has been going on about recently.” Harrison stood and extended his hand over the top of the desk. “I’m Harrison Garrett, Zane’s father.”

“Oh. Um, hello, sir.” Now, Ty’s heart was pounding for a whole new reason. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t—should I have been expecting you? I would have been here earlier if—”

“No, no. You’ve got nothing to apologize for.” Harrison smiled and, despite the reassurance of the expression, it only made Ty more nervous. “I’m the one who should be sorry for popping in without warning you, but I didn’t want Z knowing I was going to be dropping around while he was gone.”

“Why is that, sir?” Ty tried not to be suspicious—Zane mostly only ever said nice things about his dad—but he wasn’t too thrilled with this kind of sneaking secrecy.

“Because I wanted to see how my boy was getting on. Getting anything but the barest of details about things from that kid is way more difficult than it should be.” Harrison shook his head and sat back down at the desk. In Zane’s seat. “Plus, he has this ridiculous idea that me asking how things are going is me ‘checking in on him because I think he’s not going to cut it’ or some claptrap like that.”

“He can be a bit…reserved,” Ty said as he sat down across from his unexpected guest. This was definitely not on his list of ‘possible first meetings with my potential future father-in-law.’ “But he loves this business, and he’s been a wonderful boss to work for.”

“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know, but that’s still good to hear.” He folded his hands on the desk and watched Ty for a moment with an oddly focused look on his face, as though he was studying Ty. “Seems like you must be a bit of an old soul, am I right?”

“So I’ve been told, sir.” But he couldn’t tell if Harrison thought that was a good thing.

“My own son is the same, at least a bit,” he said. “Honestly, I think it’s almost genetic in the men in my family. The difference with Zane, though, is that he tends to let that maturity and overdeveloped sense of responsibility overwhelm everything else in his life.”

The only thing he could think to say was, “Sir?”

Harrison’s smile widened a bit. “The main difference with you, I think, is that you have a much younger heart.”

“I…I’m sorry, I don’t understand, sir.”

“You’re the one who got him to take Sunday mornings off, right?” When Ty nodded, Harrison went on. “I’ve been trying to get him to pick up a hobby or two for over a year before he hired you. Zane agreed and then, just, wouldn’t ever do it. You ask once, and suddenly my son’s Sunday mornings are booked.”

“How do you know I only asked once?”

“Zane told me about it.”

Ty’s breath caught as giddy excitement rushed through him. That was the second time in this brief conversation that Harrison had hinted that Zane talked about Ty to his family.

“I guess the simplest way to put this is that the damn boy was determined to skip childhood entirely and go straight from infancy to middle age. We practically had to force him to take a day off when he was growing up, and the fool blasted through what should have been six or seven years of college in five.” Harrison shook his head and chuckled ruefully. “And here I’d been hoping he’d stretch those years out instead.”

“Zane doesn’t seem the type to dawdle anywhere,” Ty offered.

“Not on his own,” the old man agreed. “He doesn’t see the point. It always takes someone else practically forcing him into it. For a while, he had someone I thought.”

“Becky?”

Harrison’s surprise was obvious on his face. “He told you about her?”

“Not much, but I know she died before they were able to get married.”

“Well, shit, son. That’s more than anyone else who met him after her funeral knows about her.” His gaze turned almost speculative, the look so reminiscent of Zane himself that Ty couldn’t help smiling. “But yes. She had a considerable effect on my boy. Loosened him up some, but only some. I think it would have taken more time than the poor girl had to have a bigger impact.”

“Maybe he’ll meet someone else who can get him to loosen up,” Ty said.

“Maybe,” Harrison conceded. “But that will have to be a very unique person indeed. Only someone with a mix of stubbornness, puns, and sarcasm is gonna make a dent in my son’s armor. I’m hoping someone will pop up in his life and make themselves at home sooner rather than later. Before loneliness turns him too bitter and closed off.”

“We’ll try to do what we can to keep him from aging prematurely in the meantime.” Ty tried to make it a joke, but even he could hear the note of serious determination in the words. After all, he’d already promised himself he’d do exactly that, hadn’t he? It was hard to make a joke out of his own goals, especially the important ones.

Although there was something knowing about Harrison’s smile, he didn’t press the subject. Instead, he started asking Ty questions about the garage. The exchange made Ty uneasy at first. It felt too much like a fishing expedition and it was impossible to know what Harrison was really looking for. Everything felt very genial, but Ty had already seen how seemingly innocuous comments and details could turn dangerous in the hands of someone who knew what to do with them.

The longer he talked to Harrison, though, the more he realized that what the man had said in the beginning really was true. He was concerned about his son and wanted to know how he was doing. By the end of what was only really a fifteen minute chat—even if it felt a lot longer as it was happening—he grew a deep respect for Harrison Garrett. It was easy to see at least one reason why Zane had turned out to be such an awesome human.

Only after Harrison had left and Ty was catching up with all the morning opening tasks did he realize something—neither of them had used pronouns when describing Zane’s future partner.

He closed his eyes and said a silent prayer. _Please let that be a good sign._

Life after he turned eighteen would be a hell of a lot easier if Zane’s family already liked him.

* * *

Zane came back to town on a Saturday, and there wasn’t an ounce of surprise on the man’s face when Ty showed up at his apartment at their usual meeting time Sunday morning. There was a brief moment when Ty wasn’t sure if he should feel annoyed at being predictable or pleased that Zane thought he’d reliably show up when he said he would.

“Morning, Tyler.” A broad, sly smile spread across Zane’s face, but there was a softness to the expression that wasn’t there when they were at work.

Instead of hello, “I met your father last week,” were the first words out of Ty’s mouth.

Instead of looking surprised, Zane sighed. “Should’ve known the old man would use me being gone as an excuse to check in on things. Do I have anything I need to apologize for anything on his behalf?”

“Nothing at all. Actually, I liked him.” Ty stepped inside and closed the door behind himself, but instead of walking farther into the apartment, he leaned back against the door and slid his hands into the pockets of his shorts. “He’s very proud of you. Just because he worries doesn’t mean he isn’t proud of you. I get the feeling he’d tell you more often if he thought you’d believe it.”

“Got to know him that well in one meeting?”

“No, but I do know my own dad, and yours is a different breed. Mine probably won’t actually say the words until one or the other of us is in a hospital bed. Doesn’t really do…” He waved his hand vaguely. “Emotions. Weaknesses, you know.”

“Emotions are only weaknesses if you ignore them until they overwhelm you out of nowhere.” Zane said it with all the resignation and gravitas of someone who’d earned a piece of wisdom by living it.

“True, but that’s my point. Your father, unlike mine, doesn’t seem like someone who’s instinct is for repression. And he also doesn’t seem the type to say what he doesn’t mean.”

“Maybe,” Zane said, expression going thoughtful as he got lost in his own thoughts for a few seconds.

“Did you have fun, at least?” Ty asked eventually.

Zane blinked and came back to the present. “Yeah. It was—I should get down there more honestly. I always forget how much I like spending time on the ranch until I’m there again.”

“I’m glad you got to go.” Ty pushed off the door and took half a step closer to Zane, hoping the warmth he could feel in his body was not showing up on his face. “We missed you, though. It’ll be nice to have you back.”

“It’s good to be back.” Zane patted Ty’s arm before stepping back and tilting his head toward the workout room. “C’mon. There’s a couple of new drills I want to show you today.”

“Lead the way, boss.” Then his fingers brush against the key in his right pocket, the one for the garage. Reluctantly, he pulled it out and let the key dangle from his finger. "Before I forget, I should give this back to you."

Zane glanced over his shoulder. Although he started to lift his hands, something made him change his mind mid-gesture and shake his head instead. "Hold on to it, actually. Never know when it might be handy for someone else to have a way to open up or make sure the place is locked down for the night."

"Are you sure?" Ty's hand closed around the key again.

"Yeah. I'm sure."

"Thanks, Zane. I won't let you down."

"You? Never." It was probably supposed to be a tease, but Ty still loved hearing that sort of faith come from the man.

As he followed Zane back to the room, Ty couldn’t keep his gaze from tracing the lean lines of Zane’s frame as he moved through the apartment. he re-did the math of his life. It had been eight months since he took the job at the garage, and it was another nine months until he finally turned eighteen. Waiting this long had been difficult. Waiting that much longer would be agonizing.

_It could be so fucking worth it, though._ He hoped it would, at least.


	6. Chapter 6

Zane had known Ty for close to a year now, and he had never seen the kid so quiet. The previous week, he’d been all alight with discussions of his Halloween costume and his plans for the upcoming holiday weekend. Today? Not a single comment.

It seemed like it was just exhaustion at first, like homework or the Internet or a girlfriend had kept him up too late, but when the near-silence persisted past lunch, Zane began to worry. He was worried enough to spend the afternoon getting things in the office squared away so that when Ty clocked out at four, so did Zane. 

"Got a date tonight or something?" Ty asked when Zane walked with him to the employee parking behind the building. "You're not one to ditch out on this place."

"And you're not one to say six words total in a day." Zane's longer legs let him beat Ty to his car, and he leaned against the door to keep it shut. "What happened, Ty?"

For a moment, Ty shifted and looked away. His bottom lip disappeared between his teeth, and he seemed to be debating whether or not to answer Zane’s question. Zane wouldn’t press the subject if Ty shrugged it off. This obvious hesitance, however, only made Zane more curious and more worried. None of this was like Ty at all.

Finally, just before he was about to back off and let things be, Ty broke down and spoke.

"You remember Nick?" 

Zane nodded. It would've been impossible to forget the tall red head who was Ty's best friend. It wasn't like Zane had spent a lot of time with the two, but Nick would swing by the garage sometimes to pick Ty up. Even the few interactions Zane’d had with them had shown how close they were. More like brothers than friends. The kind of friendship everyone wanted but so few people had. "Is he okay?" 

"Debatable," Ty muttered. Then he took a long breath. "Nick's dad is a class A asshole, right? I mean, seriously. The shit this guy has put his family through has made me contemplate murder more than once, but because he's rich and connected and has got relatives on the police force and the mayor's office, there's no reporting him to anyone. Even though he tried to put Nick in the hospital a while back. That..."

Ty's hands clenched, his knuckles going white and his face flushing red. Without thinking, Zane put his hand gently on Ty's shoulder, resting it there until the kid got himself back in control. Not that Zane blamed him for losing it in the first place. Zane may barely know Nick, but it was clear that he was a good kid, and Zane wanted to deck the bastard who'd caused Ty's friend so much pain. 

"Nick always thought no one knew—and most people don't—but someone who knew sent the details of that almost-hospital visit up the chain of the goddamn Irish mob." Which explained why Ty had been so reluctant to say anything at first. "Paddy himself recruited Nick. Made him a deal he couldn't refuse."

The impulse was to make a Godfather joke, just to try to make Ty smile, but Zane strangled that and shoved it away. It probably wouldn’t work. Not now. Instead, he asked, “What was the deal?”

"Nick goes to work for Paddy, and Paddy makes sure Nick's utter asshole of a father never touches Nick, his mother, or his sisters ever again."

“That’s…” Zane cleared his throat and tightened his grip on Ty’s shoulder. “I can see why he might think that was a good deal.”

“ _Maybe_ , but c’mon!” Ty pulled his arms back and rubbed his hands over his face, shrugging Zane’s hold off in the process. "The goddamn mob. And I get why he said yes, I know exactly how close he's come to murdering the bastard sperm-donor before, but he wanted to be a cop, Zane. He wanted to be a cop if we didn't go off and enlist in the Marines together."

"Marines?" That word sent tiny shocks through Zane, like someone had passed an active taser too close to his skin. "You're planning to enlist?"

"It was a possibility," Ty said, eyes narrowing a little like he was trying to figure out why Zane was asking about that now. Too bad Zane didn't quite know why either—the question had popped into his head an out of his mouth before he could stop it. "It still is a possibility, I guess. There's a long military history in my family. Generations. Going back to the Revolution if you buy into the family legends and some amateur genealogy. But if Nick gets locked in with Paddy, I'm not sure even the military is gonna take him, and family legacy aside, it was always _our_ plan, ya know?"

No, Zane didn't know what it felt like to be so strongly bonded to someone that you had plans going out decades about how your lives would remain intertwined. _Except for Ty, apparently._ Because it wasn't that Zane was shocked at Ty's interest in military since the family history of service had come up more than once. The shock for Zane was the realization that, sometime in the past ten months, he'd come to not only to like Ty and rely on the kid in the shop but to _expect_ him to be around every day, to be constantly getting under foot and just…around. 

“But the point is, the mob now owns my best friend and I hate him a little bit right now for making that choice even if I can understand it. A little.”

“You can understand it more than a little,” Zane chided gently. “But I also think it’s more than fair for you to be mad about the whole thing. That kind of decision rarely _only_ impacts the one making it.”

“That is just _one_ of my many concerns,” Ty admitted.

Zane nodded, turning the situation over in his mind—not exactly easy considering how little he really knew about it all. Still, something did snag his focus and hold it. "One thing I don’t understand is why would someone who runs a whole region of the Irish mob care about a high school kid?"

“There really are brains under all that pretty, aren't there?" The look Ty gave him was hard to describe. It was full of fondness and pride and it, weirdly, made him think of Becky for a moment or two. It was also a little strange to hear himself described as pretty. Thankfully, before Zane has to figure out what to say, Ty sighed and shrugged. "I've heard stories that Nick's ma and Paddy grew up in the same neighborhood and were friends as kids. May have even dated in high school. Not sure if that's the whole story, though, or if I even believe that bit of it, but it's one possibility.”

Taking a deep breath, Ty exhaled slowly and stepped around Zane to sand next to him instead, leaning back against the car. He looked so tired and so much older than seventeen. Ty took everything so seriously, carrying the weight of everyone else’s problems as though they were his responsibility to fix.

“Were you heading off to see him now?”

“I was thinking about it,” he said slowly, “but now I’m thinking it might not be the best idea. Yelling at the bastard never did much to change his mind about anything.”

“Does _anything_ change his mind?”

“Not usually,” Ty admitted, his small smile rueful. “Not unless he wants it to be changed. There’s a reason we’ve stayed friends all these years, after all.”

“You’re both more stubborn than smart?”

Ty laughed, but there wasn’t much joy in the sound. “Probably, yeah.”

“So…if you’re not going to go confront the newest initiate to the mob, where are you heading off to?”

“Fuck if I know.”

“Heading home might be the safest bet.”

“No. Absolutely not.” Ty shook his head emphatically for extra emphasis. “I walk in the door in this kind of mood and Ma will wring my neck until I tell her what’s wrong.”

“Your parents don’t know?”

“They’d insist I went to the police, and I can’t. I _can’t_.”

“But you told me.”

“I trust you, but more than that, you trust _me_.” Ty spotted the flash of surprise on Zane’s face and explained a little bit more. “They’re my _parents_. To them, at least to some extent, I’ll always be a foolish kid. You see me as more of an adult, someone who might be capable of making informed choices.”

“And that somehow means I _won’t_ push you to talk to the police?”

“Not when _literally_ the only thing I know and can _prove_ is that my best friend’s family is safe because he, on paper, took a job at a high-end restaurant. You tell me what kind of good it would do to report that.” His hand sliced through the air like he was gesturing to a wide table. “Please. Make a case. What good would that do except to possibly endanger my best friend and his three younger sisters?”

Zane’s instinct was to say, yes, he should definitely go to the police in a situation like this, but then he remembered what Ty had said earlier about the connections to the police department and to the mayor’s office. Chances were that Paddy would also have connections in those places. By going to the police, Ty could very well only be putting himself and his family in the middle of a political and social war. No matter which way Zane spun the details, that remained the most likely outcome, and he began to see why Ty couldn’t go to the police or tell his parents. Definitely not yet, and possibly not ever.

“Damn, kid. How is your life so much more complicated than mine?”

“Hell if I know, boss, but I gotta tell you.” He rubbed the back of his neck, his head tilted to look at Zane out the corner of his eye. “I’m not a fan.”

“I’m not either, and it’s not even my life.”

Ty huffed a laugh and let his chin drop to his chest as his shoulders sagged. The exhaustion Zane had seen earlier was even more obvious now, and it made Ty seem smaller. He was over six-foot-two now with broad shoulders and the lean muscles of physical labor. Looking small shouldn’t be possible. Zane found he didn’t like seeing it.

Zane usually didn’t do this. He wasn’t like Ty, taking on everyone else’s problems. Maybe because he usually didn’t get close enough to other people to know enough about their problems in the first place. There had never been a Nick in his childhood, and the closest he’d gotten to anyone in college had been Becky. Up to now, Zane’s friendships had been more acquaintanceships than anything else.

It was different with Ty. For the first time, Zane found himself not only going out of the way to help solve someone else’s problems, he found himself _wanting_ to.

“So, no visiting the police, no visiting the parents, no visiting the best friend. Where do you want to go from here?”

Ty shrugged. “I think I was just going to drive for a while until I thought I could face Ma without her knowing something was wrong.”

“Don’t know that I like you driving this distracted.” Zane hesitated for only a moment more before making a decision. “Come to the apartment. You can use the punching bag if you want to wail on something that won’t fight back, and I’ll make us dinner in a while. Might help you calm down some, at least. Make it safe to go home.”

“Oh.” The look of relieved surprise on Ty’s face was all Zane needed to see to know he was right to make the offer. “That—You wouldn’t mind?”

“Nah. You need a place to go, and I have a place you can go. I’m glad to help.” Zane stepped away from the car and pulled his keys out of his pocket. “Just follow me there so you’ll have your car when you’re ready to go.”

“Thanks, Zane. I know you don’t have to do this, and I appreciate it.”

“Just…promise me one thing?”

“If I can,” Ty said, only a hint of wariness coming into his expression.

“Come to me if this mess gets any worse? I don’t know if I’ll be able to help, but at least if you need a sounding board or anything, I hope you know I’ll help if I can.”

Ty straightened immediately, amazement shining in his slightly widened eyes. “You’re a good man, Zane Garrett. I’m lucky I walked into your garage last year.”

Zane rolled his eyes and made a joke about fate, but as he walked to his car to head home and cook dinner for them both, all he could think was _I think I’m the lucky one, Beaumont._

* * *

As soon as they entered the apartment, Zane sent Ty off to the workout room and he wandered into the kitchen. The weather had taken on the first chill of fall several weeks ago, and it had frosted for the first time the night before. Perfect weather for soup. Luckily, Zane had almost everything he needed to make his favorite Texas chili. It was also something that could sit simmering on the stove for hours if necessary, so if Zane started it now, it would be ready and waiting whenever Ty decided he wanted to eat.

As he chopped and sautéed and stirred, he could hear the rhythmic thumps and shuffles of Ty working out in the other room. It was strange how _comfortable_ this felt. The only people who usually spent time in his apartment while he was cooking was his sister. Even his parents rarely came over—when he wanted to see them, he went to their house. Mostly, the apartment had been about solitude and grief and spending too much time thinking about what might have been if he hadn’t lost Becky. It should have felt strange to have Ty using his space while he was cooking, but it didn’t. If anything, the sounds of life coming from the other room and the knowledge that offering Ty this space was making his day better felt like balm on a wound Zane hadn’t realized was still so raw.

This was one of the might-have-beens. Maybe he and Becky would have been like this, one of them working on a project in one room and the other puttering away in the kitchen, separate but still tethered together by the sounds traveling between the two rooms. It was a small comfort he had forgotten about—the simple joy of just _being_ with someone who didn’t make demands.

Zane hummed tunelessly and finished throwing the last of the ingredients into the pot, setting a timer on his phone before heading into the guest bedroom. He rarely had any guests, so a corner of the space had been commandeered as a home office. He had a direct connection to the computers at all the company’s garages from this machine, and he used this unexpected block of time to finish reviewing some more of the financial reports from the previous quarter. After the timer went off and he got up to turn the stove down to a low simmer, he lost track of time completely. By the time Ty walked out into the main space and softly called his name, two more hours had passed.

“There you are,” Ty said with a smile when Zane appeared in the doorway of the room. “Something smells good.”

“Thanks. I probably should have asked if you like chili before I started cooking, but I didn’t think about it until just now.”

“If it tastes as good as it smells, I’m sure I’ll love it.”

Zane smiled and fought the inane urge to blush. “Do you want to clean up before we eat? It can simmer for a while longer, so there’s no rush.”

“Nah, I’m fine.” He dropped a towel Zane hadn’t noticed onto one of the plush stools at the bar separating the kitchen from the dining area. “It’ll make for a better cover story if I show up back home still a bit of a mess.”

“Suit yourself.” Zane took two bowls down, ladled out the chili, and placed the slightly fuller bowl in front of Ty. The difference didn’t seem to escape Ty’s notice, given the smile he gave the bowl when he took his first spoonful.

Since the whole idea of this evening was to give Ty the space and silence he needed to get his head sorted, prying more probably wouldn’t be a good idea. The problem was, he couldn’t come up with any other topic of conversation, so he stood on the other side of the bar and started eating his own chili. At least, that was what he’d _planned_ on doing.

Then, Ty rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Zane, quit looming and come sit.”

Ty pushed the second stool out with his foot and indicted it with a tilt of his head, silently ordering Zane to comply. Which he did. It created an unexpected problem, though. This close to Ty, he could feel how much more relaxed he was compared to the bowstring tension that had been locking him into rigid lines earlier in the afternoon. He was relieved that his offer had helped. However, curiosity still nagged at him like an itch, and he found himself wanting more details about the situation Nick had landed his best friend in. How could he predict all the ways this thing might go to hell if he didn’t have all the key details?

Halfway through the meal, Zane couldn’t keep his nosiness at bay anymore.

“Hey, Ty, you don’t have to answer this, but I was wondering something.” Zane waited until Ty looked at him so he could get a sense of his mood. The expression on his face was hard to read. It looked like amusement and maybe a little surprise, but nothing in his hazel eyes seemed to be hinting that Zane should shut up. That gave him the last push he needed to dig a little bit more. “Why did Nick tell you what he’d done? The real deal he’d made?”

“Was wondering when you’d ask that,” Ty admitted. He took another spoon of chili before he answered. “Because he knows it’s better than the alternative—lying to me when something is so clearly wrong and making me go digging around for answers on my own.”

“Oh. Yeah, that…that’s probably not a good idea.” Zane could even admit that he would do the same in Ty’s place. He already had, hadn’t he? Ty had started acting strange, and Zane had pushed until Ty had given up the details. And here he was doing it again. He wouldn’t have thought of himself as that type of person until today—live and let live had been his most commonly advocated motto—but here Ty was proving himself an exception one more time.

“It was Nicko’s only good idea in recent weeks,” Ty grumbled. “Then again, the prick knew he had a choice. He could leak a small amount of information to me and give me a good reason to keep myself out of it or he could keep his secrets and end up trying to explain to his new boss why his best friend was sneaking around looking for information.” Then, he stopped himself and took a long, slow breath. He released it just as slowly and seemed to be trying to force casual carelessness into his expression. “Nick may have made a sucking awful choice by agreeing to this bullshit, but he’s no fool. He knows which risks are worth taking. Most of the time.”

“If you say so. I guess we’ll just have to see how that one plays out in the end.” The only response he got to that was a shrug, and a subtle nod. He decided maybe a shift in subject was the best idea. Right now, there was only one other thing on his mind, though. “So, if not the Marines, what do you think you’re going to be doing after you graduate? Off to college somewhere?”

Ty gave him the strangest look, like he was shocked Zane even needed to ask the question. “I’ve already applied to programs in the area that will give me a license and a degree. First choice is Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology since I’ll be able to get a Bachelor’s there, but it won’t be like much has changed. Or…I mean, I guess I was hoping you’d still let me work for you even after I graduated?”

“Are you kidding?” He really wanted the kid to be kidding, but the discomfort Ty was trying and failing to hide made it clear that, at least in this, Ty’s usual confidence was far weaker than usual. It shook Zane more than he wanted to acknowledge to see the kid so rattled. Taking a deep breath, he reached across the table and placed his hand over Ty’s. “Beaumont Tyler Grady, you have a job with me until you quit. That’s the most important thing, and I want to make sure you to know.”

“Thanks, Zane.” His gaze dropped for a second before, with apparent reluctance, he met Zane’s eyes again. “Why do I feel like there’s a but?”

“ _But_ I just… I don’t know.” He pulled his hand back and ran his fingers through his thick hair. “I guess what you said earlier about your old plans with Nick got me thinking about how we haven’t actually talked about what you wanted to do with your life. I had my life more or less planned out for me. I’m lucky that it was something I liked, so I didn’t mind putting the work in to follow that path, but you’re different. You’re brilliant and dedicated and so much more put together than I was at your age. I am happy to keep you on for as long as you want to work for me, but…”

Ty ate some more of the chili, and they both pretended it wasn’t a stalling tactic. “So what are you saying, Zane?”

“I just want you to be sure you do actually want this to be your life. Don’t stay because you’re good at it and you’re comfortable here. You could do anything and be anyone you wanted to be. I want you to get a chance to chase down whatever dreams you have.”

“Hmm.” Ty nodded slowly and stirred his spoon through the chili that was left in his bowl. “You know what my dream is? I mean, yeah, I’ve had phases where I wanted to go to college and join the FBI or made plans about how I would navigate my way up the military ranks, but those are just jobs. When I think about my _life_ , I really just want what my parents have.”

“What’s that?”

“Decades to spend with someone who is as close to my soulmate as it’s possible to get in this universe.” His smile turned somewhat sheepish when he saw the surprise Zane couldn’t suppress fast enough. “Strange life goal for a teenager, I know. Had a solid example to watch growing up, though. They met when they were barely twenty, and they were married within six months, and they’ve pretty much only been separated when my dad was deployed. Between them, they’ve had a more than a dozen jobs. They’re big on the ideal that you aren’t your job so what you do shouldn’t define your life. It’s what they’ve built for each other at home that matters.”

“Your parents definitely sound like an example to aspire to,” Zane admitted. Unlike his own who had married because of…he wasn’t even sure, really. Status and business and convenience, probably. “I think that kind of bond is something most people want, kid. It’s just…you can’t really plan for that. A career is a whole lot easier to tackle.”

“Easy,” Ty scoffed. “Haven’t you heard nothing good ever comes easy?”

“I think I may have heard it said a time or two.”

“So I have your official approval on my life plans then?’ Ty asked the question with an undertone of sarcasm, but Zane had already been watching the kid closely. That meant he caught the nervous flicker of Ty’s gaze and the way his fingers started tracing the lines of the quartz countertops.

As much as the kid wanted to pretend Zane’s opinion didn’t matter, the opposite was obviously true. “I’ll support you whatever your plans are, but yes. I have to say that I’m very happy to hear I won’t have to find some way to replace you next fall. In fact, I’ll have to remind you to talk to your advisor once you’re enrolled somewhere. Chances are pretty good that you’ll be able to get some course credits for the amount of experience you already have in the garage.”

“See, now, how many bosses would think to tell me something like that?” Ty smiled and finished the last of the chili in his bowl. “Why in the world would I want to take a chance of ending up somewhere else working for someone horrible when I have such a good thing going for me right here?”

Zane laughed and told the kid off for ridiculous flattery, but even as he saw the kid out and cleaned up the dinner dishes, he found himself unexpectedly settled by the conversation. Ty wasn’t planning on leaving. In fact, Ty was adamant about staying and learning as much as he could. That kind of long-term promise already had Zane planning out the next few years, wondering if he could somehow align what Ty was doing in school to practical projects in the garage, and wondering how soon would be too soon to ask if the kid wanted to be in a management role one day. Trustworthy business partners were hard to find, after all, and Zane eventually wanted to take over complete control of _all_ his family’s garages.

With Ty working with him, that dream might become real a whole lot sooner than he’d ever thought possible. Even if he couldn’t make the other dream Ty described come true, it would please Zane to no end to at least be able to give the kid something back.

He wouldn’t say anything yet, but maybe next summer, after Ty graduated. That would be perfect. And it gave Zane plenty of time to figure out how to make it actually happen.


	7. Chapter 7

Zane was in his office looking over the numbers for the Garrett’s other garages when someone knocked on the door. “Come in.”

When the door opened, Ty’s head appeared in the space. “Got a minute, Zane?”

“Always. What do you need, Ty?”

He had an envelope in his hand, and he was tapping it nervously against his other palm as he stepped in. “I, uh, I doubt you remember this, but my birthday is coming up soon. My eighteenth.”

“Shit, that’s right. Is it May already?”

Ty smiled and nodded. “We’re having a thing at my parents place the weekend of the 27th, and I wanted to invite you.”

“Oh, really?” He held out his hand automatically when Ty offered the plain white square. Zane’s name was written on the front in a surprisingly beautiful script. “This is very generous, but are you sure you want me taking up a seat at your celebration? It’s a big day.”

But the kid rolled his eyes. “When have you ever known me to do things I don’t want to do, Zane? If I’m inviting you, it’s because I want you to be there. If you can make it, of course.”

“Okay, fair. I just wanted to make sure, I guess.” He wasn’t even sure why he was surprised. In the almost eighteen months since Ty had walked into the garage, the kid had made himself as indispensable as he’d threatened he would. On top of that, there was the fact that he’d spent more time with Ty in the last year than he had his whole family combined. All of that combined and, well, why _wouldn’t_ the kid include him in this?

And he wasn’t really a kid anymore, was he? Eighteen made him legally an adult in all the ways he was mentally and emotionally an adult already.

“So…eighteen, huh?”

“Yeah. It comes right after seventeen.”

“Ha, fine. Yes. But, really. Adulthood and high school graduation loom.” Zane smiled and shook his head. “How you feeling?”

“I’d be relieved to be done with school if not for the fact that I’ll be right back in school in a few months.”

Zane nodded. “It’s different when it’s something you choose instead of something that’s dictated to you. At least, that’s how I felt when I finally escaped high school.”

“It’ll definitely be a gift to be working on something practical instead of general information.” He spoke easily, but his gaze kept flicking down to the envelope in Zane’s hands—the invitation that still hadn’t been opened. “So, are you free? You don’t have to bring anything or anything like that, but I’d love it if you could come.”

“If you’re sure. I doubt your friends want to do is hang around with your boss all night, but I’ll at least stop by.”

“And I’ll work on ways of convincing you to stay,” Ty said with a amused smile.

Zane rolled his eyes. “Go home, kid. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“And come to the party?”

“Yes. Promise,” he said with a laugh. “Now leave, please. Some of us still have work to do.”

“Sir, yes, sir.” With a salute that looked surprisingly accurate, Ty stood and walked out of the office.

What Zane should have done was put the invitation and everything else aside until he’d finished the work he actually had to do. _Should_ didn’t seem to matter, though, because he was already cutting the envelope open with a replica sword from the Walking Dead, a birthday gift from his sister a while back.

The invitation inside was surprisingly plain, but it was written in the same flourishing hand as the front of the envelope. It included only the basic details: who, what, where, when, and why. It also made a specific note of the fact that dinner would be provided. Zane supposed that fact in itself told him how long he’d be expected to stay.

Despite what Ty had tried to say, there was no way he could make himself show up empty handed. That, however, left Zane with a problem. What kind of birthday present was he supposed to buy for someone who was both an employee _and_ a friend? Zane found himself bouncing between exceedingly simple ideas, like gift cards, to grandiose and ridiculous ones, like sourcing and buying _all_ the remaining parts Ty needed for his Mustang restoration. The first group didn’t feel like enough to give someone who had become such an important part of Zane’s life. The second was obviously way too much to give someone who was one of many employees of Zane’s business.

Humming thoughtfully, he propped the invite up against the edge of his monitor and sat back in his chair. This would be a hard problem to solve. It felt important, though. This was a gift that mattered. He only had a week to figure out what the gift was, find it, and buy it. And he’d probably learn how to wrap, too.

* * *

On Saturday evening, just after six, Zane drove south toward Blue Hills. It wasn’t often that he ended up in this section of the county, so he took the scenic route to enjoy the warm May evening. Taking drives solely for the pleasure of the engine’s rumble and the joy of taking turns a little too fast. He really needed to do this more often. Or at least periodically. Maybe. Sometimes. Oh, who was he kidding? He probably wouldn’t do this again until something forced him to, so he’d better enjoy the chance while he had it.

The route plugged into his GPS took him through densely packed neighborhoods, busy suburbs, and then finally into spacious plots with houses hidden by trees. When he turned onto a narrow road that wound up the mountain from the more occupied sections lower on the slope, he almost thought he’d taken a wrong turn. There weren’t many areas like this so close to the city—sloped and picturesque and sprawling—and he honestly doubted that even his family would be able to afford much in an area like this. Either Ty’s family had way more money than he’d thought, or this plot of land had been in their family for a _long_ time.

He pulled up to the house and marveled more than a little. It was one thing to see it on the map, and another entirely to pull up in person. It was a small place that sat alone in every direction he could see. More importantly, this was a _home_. There was a wide porch that seemed like it might encircle the two-story house, a brick chimney, and lots of curtained windows. Ivy, flowers, and greenery was everywhere, both on the porch and covering the surrounding ground. It was all unbelievably picturesque. Imagining Ty running around here as a child was easy, and even the mental picture was enough to make Zane smile.

Only once he has parked and make his way up to the porch did he realize something strange. This was supposed to be a party, and he’s just barely on time, yet there was only a handful of cars in the drive. Sure, Ty had been busy with school and work for the last year and a half, but Zane couldn’t believe a kid like Ty didn’t have dozens of friends, acquaintances, exes, and hangers-on who’d come to celebrate his eighteenth with him.

Slightly confused, he knocked on the door and looked around as he waited. Only a few seconds later, the door was opened by an older woman with a colorful dress and a warm smile.

“Hello, dear, you must be Zane! I’m Ty’s mother, Mara. We’re all so pleased you could come.”

“Sorry, I must be earlier than I thought. I don’t want to intrude if you’re not ready for guests.”

“Nonsense, dear. You’re right on time.” Her smile grew and she stepped back, gesturing Zane into the house. “I’m so pleased you could make it. I feel like you’ve seen Ty more than I have in the last while, and it’s a shame we don’t know you hardly at all. I’m hoping to change that tonight.”

“I’d like that, ma’am.” It was all Zane could think of to say. He’d planned on coming for a while, hanging back, and leaving after dinner. He was the kid’s boss, after all, and he didn’t want to take up attention on such an important day.

In the living room, Ty, Nick, and another teenager who could only be Ty’s younger brother shared the couch and played a racing game. Two armchairs to one side were occupied by a much older man who was, for whatever reason, holding onto a shovel, and a slightly younger man who must be Ty’s father.

What he’d walked into wasn’t a party, it was an intimate family gathering, and this wasn’t really something he was prepared to navigate at all.


End file.
